


Brutality

by BonesOfBirdWings



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: BAMF Kirk, Gen, Squick, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 01:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BonesOfBirdWings/pseuds/BonesOfBirdWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Khan isn’t the only brutal one. After all, Kirk didn’t see Khan on the dying fields of Tarsus IV, did he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brutality

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from Fanfiction.net. A oneshot that will not be continued, so fan continuations are welcome.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and if you liked it, a comment would be much appreciated (or if you hated it, whatever).

**Brutality**

 

When Khan stares him in the eyes and states that _he is brutal_ , Jim has to force down a laugh, because he knows that if it comes out, it will be harsh and loud and uncontrollably hysterical.

 

He wants to tell the man that humanity hasn’t changed. Brutality and rage and utter fear are constants, and although Khan might believe himself superior, he is just as human as Jim. Does Khan think that Jim hasn’t killed, hasn’t listened to a man’s last breath, hasn’t felt his own two hands tightening across a fragile throat? Khan is brutal; well, James T. Kirk is brutal too.

 

Jim still remembers his hands _unclean, slick with blood_ and how they gripped _slippery red_ the handle of the axe, pilfered from the shed behind the house of his family _dead dead dead, Aunt Marna’s screams gone and the red of phaser-light_. It had been easy to kill _much easier than feeding his hungry children_ and the soldier _hated uniform, should rot like the bodies_ laid unmoving on the ground. 

 

He didn’t know when his society-borne morals had deserted him _maybe when Tommy’s pleading eyes slicked over with fever or Sarah choked on her own vomit or Sandra disappeared in a cascade of atoms_ , but they needed the food, and so he swallowed down the nausea and the axe fell, again and again, and tried not to think _because then they would survive another day and the dead ones wouldn’t swim behind closed eyelids._

He carried everything back in a sack, pretending that something still lived on Tarsus IV _this godforsaken wasteland of disease and hunger_. The older children weren’t fooled, but the younger ones could live with their innocence _a precious commodity_ and not have to blank their minds if they wanted to eat, and live. Jim wonders if they were even able to reintegrate into society, because he still observes the ritual _a brief prayer to a non-existent God and the shedding of thoughts, one by one_ whenever he eats meat.

 

Jim Kirk is ruthless, and vicious. He wishes that Khan wouldn’t mistake superior strength for deeper emotions, because he can kill as well as Khan can, for the good of his people. So he distrusts (because some habits never fade), but he doesn’t fear. Khan is no worse that Jim has ever been, and although Jim wants him dead _burn burn burn_ for what he did to Pike, Jim understands.

 

Because Jim is human, and he is brutal.


End file.
